Diana Brough

South Barrington, Illinois

Diana Marion Adams Brough, 91, passed away early Thursday morning, January 11, 2018 at the home of her daughter and son-in-law in Issaquah, Washington. Diana was born in Chicago on October 24, 1926 to Mary Agnes Kozicki and Marion Walter Adams in Chicago.

She attended public grammar school where she skipped two grades. She then attended Tabor Lutheran School for grades 6-8 and graduated from Roosevelt High School at 16.

After graduating she worked for the telephone company and attended night school.

During World War II she and her two aunts, Aggie and Vicky, decided to visit Diana’s brother, Roy, who was stationed at Great Lakes with a cake for his birthday. Diana had been informed by card the week before that he would not be available that day but she and her aunts decided to pretend that they had never received the card and went anyway because it was his birthday. Of course they had to talk their way in, which they did, protesting that they had made him a cake. Roy was on garbage detail and had to get cleaned up before visiting with them. Then on the train home a sailor winked at Diana and before they knew it, he asked them out for a drink. Diana said, “We don’t drink” and her Aunt Vicky said that she had to go home. Diana and her Aunt Aggie agreed to go out for a Coke. The sailor ended up spending the night at Diana’s family’s home and four months later Diana and Bill were married.

After the war she and Bill attended Central College in Fayetteville, Missouri. Bill graduated but Diana quit because her daughter Eda Lee was born in 1948. Bill went on to get his masters degree in soil conservation at the University of Missouri. After graduation she and Bill moved back to Chicago, where they started a construction company, building three blocks of houses in Park Ridge, Illinois. Their son Gregory was born in 1952.

In 1959, the family moved to an unincorporated area south of Barrington. Bill built their house and was one of the founding fathers of what is now known as the Village of South Barrington. They built Pickwick Place, Windemere, Tamarack, and several houses around the Barrington area. They developed Greensward, a subdivision full of trees, around the family home.

Diana always loved to travel. It started when she pulled the family’s aqua Ford station wagon up to the front door with the children packed in the car and gave Bill ten minutes to pack because they were leaving for Washington, D.C. He did.

In 1964, Eda Lee and Diana went to Europe for 10 weeks using Europe on Five Dollars a Day. They slept in youth hostels, visited friends, hiked in Lapland, and went to Poland and all over Europe. They even drove into a gypsy caravan.

When Eda Lee went to college and Greg went to high school, Diana went to work at O’Hare Field for North Central Airlines. She was the secretary to the airline’s Chicago manager. Besides running the office on the mezzanine, she befriended many of the young employees who had left families and farms to work in Chicago. They were lonesome and came to her for advice and assistance. Many of them became lifelong friends. The first day her flying privileges were available she sent her two children to Milwaukee for the day (by way of Oshkosh, Green Bay, and other Wisconsin cities due to fog in Milwaukee). They arrived in Milwaukee at 4:00 PM when they were supposed to return to Chicago O’Hare. They saw the geodesic domes and flew home. Diana thought they had been kidnapped because they didn’t get back to O’Hare until 7:00 PM. She retired from the airline after 18 years and its metamorphosis into Republic Airlines and its eventual purchase by Northwest Airlines, which was later purchased by Delta Airlines.

She had traveled before working for the airlines and traveled extensively to South America, Russia, Japan, Europe, and all over the United States while at the airlines and continued after she retired. Besides her travels, she was an avid reader of mysteries. She enjoyed her two grandsons who came to visit separately and together, who confided in her, and loved her dearly. In the last years of her life she loved being with her great grandson as well.

Diana is survived by her husband of 73 years, William Wallace Brough III; her daughter, Eda Lee Haas and son-in-law, Phillip Jeffrey Haas of Issaquah, Washington; her son Gregory Bruce Brough and daughter-in-law Deborah Bloomer of Webster Groves, Missouri; grandson Christopher Brough Haas and his wife Mackenzie Parker, grandson Gregory Brough Haas, and great grandson Theodore Parker Haas of Seattle, Washington; as well as many beloved cousins, nieces, nephews, a sister-in-law, and friends.